Segmented Coating Gaps for Medical Device Flexibility
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Solution Overview
Problem
There is a need for alternative medical devices and manufacturing methods for intracorporeal devices like guidewires, catheters, and stents that improve flexibility, torque-transmitting characteristics, and manufacturing efficiency while maintaining desirable material properties.
Innovation Solution
A slotted tubular member with a coating that includes coating gaps over the slots, allowing for minimal impact on flexibility and reducing manufacturing costs, achieved through micromachining and coating application methods that use solvents or masking agents to define the gaps.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a continuous coating is applied over the entire tubular member surface, then the coating provides uniform protection and lubricity, but it reduces flexibility and increases manufacturing complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The coating is segmented into discrete sections rather than being continuous. Coating gaps are introduced between coated segments, allowing the tubular member to flex more easily while still providing lubricity where the coating is present. This segmentation resolves the contradiction by maintaining coating benefits in critical areas while allowing flexibility in others.
Solution Approach 2:
Different regions of the tubular member have different coating characteristics. Some areas have coating while others have gaps, creating local variations in surface properties. This allows the device to have lubricity where needed (in coated regions) while maintaining flexibility in gap regions, resolving the contradiction between uniform protection and flexibility.
2Reliability
If a continuous coating is applied over the entire tubular member surface, then the coating provides uniform protection, but it increases manufacturing complexity and cost
Solution Approach 1:
The coating process is segmented to apply coating only to specific sections rather than the entire surface. This reduces the total amount of coating material needed and simplifies the manufacturing process by eliminating the need for continuous coating application and bonding layers, while still providing adequate protection in critical areas.
Solution Approach 2:
The bonding layer is extracted or eliminated from the manufacturing process. By using coating gaps instead of a continuous coating with bonding layers, the manufacturing process is simplified and costs are reduced while maintaining the necessary protective function.
3Reliability
If the coating is made thicker to improve durability and lubricity, then the coating provides better protection, but it increases the risk of chipping and reduces flexibility
Solution Approach 1:
The coating is divided into discrete segments with gaps between them. This segmentation reduces the overall coating mass and the stress concentrated in any single location, thereby reducing the risk of chipping while still providing sufficient lubricity and durability in the coated regions.
Solution Approach 2:
The coating thickness and presence are optimized locally rather than uniformly. Thinner or absent coating in certain regions reduces chipping risk, while adequate coating in critical regions maintains durability and lubricity, resolving the contradiction between thickness benefits and chipping resistance.
Data Source
AI summary
Medical devices and methods for making and using the same. An example medical device includes a slotted tubular member and a coating disposed over the tubular member. The coating may define one or more coating gaps therein.